Monday, November 10, 2014

Back to Rummy's Cut and a quick snippet of an area that is changing as we speak. It's the area right next to the old Wanchai Star Ferry Pier.

When I say "changing as we speak", ongoing harbour reclamation works extending all the way from Wanchai to Central have forced the old pier to close and a new one built at the front of the newly reclaimed harbourfront - about 100 metres further north. The old pier, seen partially in the above screen caps, was just closed on the 29th August 2014. Here is a diagram of the area as it currently stands, courtesy of the Star Ferry company (http://www.starferry.com.hk/en/news20140821).

The walkway over the road is still around and hasn't changed much, but the view we see in the lowest screen capture (above) has completely disappeared thanks to the new Convention Centre - built in time for the 1997 Handover ceremony.

5 comments:

That pedestrian overpass is one of several locations where I saw movies being filmed in Hong Kong back in the early 90s. I've no idea what film it was they were shooting, but they had roped off part of the overpass at the ferry pier end, and an Asian actress was being shown over and over by a gent who was presumably a martial arts instructor or fight choreographer how to aim a high kick at her fellow actor's head.

I think the actor might have been a gweilo, but it was a long time ago now, and my memory is occasionally known to go all Mr. Magoo on me. ;-) Anyway, I watched for a few minutes before crossing the overpass, and didn't see any actual filming, but it was cool nonetheless. (And very impressive to see how accurately the instructor / fight choreographer could stop his foot less than an inch from the guy's head every single time, without once hitting him.)

Would love to know what that movie was, assuming it ever saw release...

I shall keep my eyes open. Interesting about the gweilo though. There is a plethora of films i have yet to mine, plus many local films have Westerners in them. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Thanks! Yes, possibly even harder, actually, given that it is only one scene in an unknown movie. A needle in a field full of haystacks, possibly... Only thing I'm fairly certain of was that it was shot in the latter half of 1991 or early 1992.

The other filming I saw, BTW, was a martial arts fight scene -- using trampolines for high kicks -- on a muddy "beach" somewhere in the New Territories that had a couple of stolen cars/vans rusting away at the waterline, and a "body" (basically some sack cloth with clothes on) being thrown off a headland onto the rocks below, again somewhere out in Clearwater Bay.

Not sure precisely where either was, but I think the latter was somewhere near Shaw Studios. My dad could probably tell me, if I remember to ask.

As for the headland I remember seeing the "body" thrown from, I wonder if that might be Ngam Tau Sha or Lung Ha Wan? I know I recognize the former -- just opposite the little sailing club or whatever it is, there's a little scrubby beach on which I once found dozens and dozens of dried-up, dead puffer fish (!) -- so I know we went there, but not sure if that headland was always private property. The other one seems to be a short hike to get to the headland, and also looks familiar. My parents had a (great) habit of just choosing random roads and driving down them, so we ended up all sorts of odd places.